1 is also for documents written with apps such as Word and the likes.

Won't a "chkdsk" be the thing to do ? Or put my drive in slave from another PC ? anar, any idea before I declare my data as lost ? [cry] Also, any idea for a solid HD to buy ?

"chkdsk" stands for check disk and will only check for bad sectors and mark them as bad. When "marked" as bad it's as though they don't exist anymore - data on them is lost (so files/filesystems may be corrupted) and the disk skips over them. The issue here is that damage is very very very very likely to still be happening every time the disk spins up. Essentially it won't fix the problem, and may actually make it worse as it forces a full disk scan (for instance the heads may get "stuck" on one of the problem areas and kill your drive)...

The way we will try to get data back is by putting your hard disk in to a working machine as a second drive as you suggest - but you can do this in your own machine once you have a new drive with windows installed on it.

I almost forgot - do you have a copy of windows you can put on the new disk?

With regards as to which drive to buy, my only advice is to get a recognised name and to avoid seagate like the plague. Maybe others can comment on performance, but IMO seagate are the only ones to stand out as terrible of the branded ones...

I had a Western Digital ATA drive fail in a similar manner last May (I had OS and data partitions too). Replaced it with a 60GB Hitachi SATA and a 10GB Maxtor ATA. I use the 10GB drive for the OS only (WinXP) and the 60GB drive is partitioned for data, games, etc.

The idea came from a co-worker (software engineer) who had problems with his drives failing in OS partitions. He thought it was due to the fact that the computer constantly needs to access/read the OS portion of the drive. Seems to work very well for me and I probably won't be too put out if one dies due to the price of HD's these days.

Yes, take the disk out without starting the PC, connect and install new drive, shake the old one a little bit and put it back as a slave. Backup whatever you can and throw it away. I've heard a few stories that actually hitting the drive with hammer or throwing down from the table might help. If it stops to spin which also often happens, it can be placed in a tightly wrapped bag in a freezer overnight then thawed and dried before mounting back. Sometimes it helps but not in case of bad sectors. Data can be recovered but it is really expensive since requires de-assembly of plates and mounting them back on a new headset in a controlled dust-free environment. Price is about $20/Gb recovered at least in Compaq factory here in Houston.

Ack! I have a seagate hdd :(

Got to ask some generous benefactor (ie my father) for some assistance.

Hm, perhaps I could raid his "old" computer [smirk]

I've just put my drive as a slave on another PC. It doesn't help at all, ie. it won't allow me to access the data, chkdsk does nothing. Should I shake it like hell, so that it works ? Any idea on what I should do with it as a slave, or anything else ?

Now thus may seem stupid but...

1) Have you checked that the jumpers (little marker things) are set correctly on both drives?
2) Are you using the same IDE cable to connect both hard drives to?
3) Have you checked the BIOS to see if the motherboard recognises the fact you have connected 2 hard drives?

Personally I'd probably just take all the plugs from the CD/DVD drive and attach the slave drive to those.

Dont shake your PC/Hard drive ever! This may work with 1980's stereos but Comps are a little more delicate. This isn't a loose connection issue here.

We need more info though as well. Can you see the drive at all? Or just this partition missing?

Melifluous

1) I checked the jumper on my drive : I changed it to "slave" position. I didn't check it on the other drive, though I know it is on "master".

2) Yeah, the same grey, flat IDE cable connects both drives to the motherboard.

3) When I start my dad's PC, it recognizes every drive, and immediately tells me about the FAILURE about the primary slave drive (mine), and that it needs to be replaced after saving the data.

In fact, my dad's PC has 2 hard drives, one on master, one on slave, as well as 2 drives for CDs and DVDs. I just took the plugs off of the slave hard drive, and put them on mine.

I shook it a little bit, nothing more than with a Kinder chocolate.

In "Poste de travail" (where you can see the drives), I can see my damaged partition, though it is called "Disque local" (standard, unpersonalized name). Clicking on it says "Drive isn't accessible... Error with a pagination operation" (translation by me). Right-clicking on it sometimes shows that the partition has 0 byte on 0 available, and that it is in RAW. The other partition shows up well, even on my dad's PC.

I'm close to forgetting about the data, and buying a new drive, and start from scratch. I checked and I didn't back up anything on CDs. :(